The Archive of the Romanian Revolution of December 1989https://romanianrevolutionofdecember1989.com
A Catch-22 December 1989, Groundhog-Day Production. Presenting the Personal Research & Scholarship of Richard Andrew Hall, Ph.D.Wed, 21 Feb 2018 01:28:46 +0000enhourly1http://wordpress.com/https://secure.gravatar.com/blavatar/15706c15002fcd16e6b450b9df01dc84?s=96&d=https%3A%2F%2Fs2.wp.com%2Fi%2Fbuttonw-com.pngThe Archive of the Romanian Revolution of December 1989https://romanianrevolutionofdecember1989.com
25 for the 25th Anniversary of the Romanian Revolution: #25 After the Ceausescus Were Executed: The Counter-Revolution is Disappeared (26 December 1989 – 24 January 1990)https://romanianrevolutionofdecember1989.com/2015/01/04/25-for-the-25th-anniversary-of-the-romanian-revolution-25-after-the-ceausescus-were-executed-the-counter-revolution-is-disappeared-26-december-1989-24-january-1990/
https://romanianrevolutionofdecember1989.com/2015/01/04/25-for-the-25th-anniversary-of-the-romanian-revolution-25-after-the-ceausescus-were-executed-the-counter-revolution-is-disappeared-26-december-1989-24-january-1990/#respondSun, 04 Jan 2015 23:19:06 +0000http://romanianrevolutionofdecember1989.com/?p=10497(purely personal views as always, based on two decades of prior research and publications)

Standard Disclaimer: All statements of fact, opinion, or analysis expressed are those of the author and do not reflect the official positions or views of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) or any other U.S. Government agency. Nothing in the contents should be construed as asserting or implying U.S. Government authentication of information or CIA endorsement of the author’s views. This material has been reviewed by CIA to prevent the disclosure of classified information.[Submitted to CIA’s Publications Review Board (PRB) 19 November 2009; cleared without changes by PRB 15 December 2009; final FEAB clearance for publication 22 December 2009]

I am an intelligence analyst for the Central Intelligence Agency. I have been a CIA analyst since 2000. Prior to that time, I had no association with CIA outside of the application process.

for full article and citations, please see here: (word file and pdf respectively)

Romania, December 1989: a Revolution, a Coup d’etat, AND a Counter-Revolution

This December marks twenty years since the implosion of the communist regimeof Dictator Nicolae Ceausescu. It is well-known, but bears repeating: Romania not only came late in the wave of communist regime collapse in the East European members of the Warsaw Pact in the fall of 1989 (Poland, Hungary, the GDR, Czechoslovakia, Bulgaria), it came last—and inevitably that was significant. Despite the more highly personalist (vs. corporate) nature of the Ceausescu regime, the higher level of fear and deprivation that characterized society, and the comparative insulation from the rest of the East European Warsaw Pact states, Romania could not escape the implications of the collapse of the other communist party-states. Despite the differences, there simply were too many institutional and ideological similarities, or as is often most importantly the case, that is how members of both the state and society interpreted matters. “Going last” [in turn, in show] almost inevitably implies that the opportunities for mimicry, for opportunism, for simulation on the one hand and dissimulation on the other, are greater than for the predecessors…and, indeed, one can argue that some of what we saw in Romania in December 1989 reflects this.

Much of the debate about what happened in December 1989 has revolved around how to define those events…and their consequences. [These can be analytically distinct categories and depending on how one defines things, solely by focusing on the events themselves or the consequences, or some combination thereof, will inevitably shape the answer one gets]. The primary fulcrum or axis of the definitional debate has been between whether December 1989 and its aftermath were/have been a revolution or a coup d’etat. But Romanian citizens and foreign observers have long since improvised linguistically to capture the hybrid and unclear nature of the events and their consequences. Perhaps the most neutral, cynical, and fatalistic is the common “evenimentele din decembrie 1989”—the events of December 1989—but it should also be pointed out that the former Securitate and Ceausescu nostalgics have also embraced, incorporated and promoted, such terminology. More innovative are terms such as rivolutie (an apparent invocation of or allusion to the famous Romanian satirist Ion Luca Caragiale’s 1880 play Conu Leonida fata cu reactiunea , where he used the older colloquial spelling revulutie) or lovilutie (a term apparently coined by the humorists at Academia Catavencu, and combining the Romanian for coup d’etat, lovitura de stat, and the Romanian for revolution, revolutie).

The following characterization of what happened in December 1989 comes from an online poster, Florentin, who was stationed at the Targoviste barracks—the exact location where Nicolae and Elena Ceausescu would be summarily tried and executed on 25 December 1989. Although his definitions may be too economically-based for my taste—authoritarianism/dictatorship vs. democracy would be preferable—and the picture he presents may be oversimplified at points, the poster’s characterization shows that sometimes the unadorned straighttalk of the plainspoken citizen can cut to the chase better than many an academic tome:

I did my military service, in Targoviste, in fact in the barracks at which the Ceausescu couple were executed…It appears that a coup d’etat was organized and executed to its final step, the proof being how the President of the R.S.R. (Romanian Socialist Republic) died, but in parallel a revolution took place. Out of this situation has transpired all the confusion. As far as I know this might be a unique historical case, if I am not mistaken. People went into the streets, calling not just for the downfall of the president then, but for the change of the political regime, and that is what we call a revolution. This revolution triumphed, because today we have neither communism, nor even neocommunism with a human face. The European Union would not have accepted a communist state among its ranks. The organizers of the coup d’etat foresaw only the replacement of the dictator and the maintenance of a communist/neocommunist system, in which they did not succeed, although there are those who still hope that it would have succeeded. Some talk about the stealing of the revolution, but the reality is that we live in capitalism, even if what we have experienced in these years has been more an attempt at capitalism, orchestrated by an oligarchy with diverse interests…

This is indeed the great and perhaps tragic irony of what happened in December 1989 in Romania: without the Revolution, the Coup might well have failed, but without the Coup, neither would the Revolution have succeeded. The latter is particularly difficult for the rigidly ideological and politically partisan to accept; yet it is more than merely a talking point and legitimating alibi of the second-rung nomenklatura who seized power (although it is that too). The very atomization of Romanian society that had been fueled and exploited by the Ceausescu regime explained why Romania came last in the wave of Fall 1989, but also why it was and would have been virtually impossible for genuine representatives of society—led by dissidents and protesters—to form an alternative governing body on 22 December whose decisions would have been accepted as sufficiently authoritative to be respected and implemented by the rump party-state bureaucracy, especially the armed forces and security and police structures. The chaos that would have ensued—with likely multiple alternative power centers, including geographically—would have likely led to a far greater death toll and could have enabled those still betting on the return of the Ceausescus to after a time reconquer power or seriously impede the functioning of any new government for an extended period.

The fact that the Revolution enabled the coup plotters to seize power, and that the coup enabled the Revolution to triumph should be identified as yet another version—one particular to the idiosyncracies of the Romanian communist regime—of what Linz and Stepan have identified as the costs or compromises of the transition from authoritarian rule. In Poland, for example, this meant that 65 percent of the Sejm was elected in non-competitive elections, but given co-equal authority with the Senate implying that “a body with nondemocratic origins was given an important role in the drafting of a democratic constitution”; in fact, Poland’s first completely competitive elections to both houses of Parliament occurred only in October 1991, fully two years after the formation of the first Solidarity government in August 1989. In Romania, this meant that second-rung nomenklaturists—a displaced generation of elites eager to finally have their day in the sun—who to a large extent still harbored only Gorbachevian perestroikist views of the changes in the system as being necessary, were able to consolidate power following the elimination of the ruling Ceausescu couple.

The self-description by senior Front officials (Ion Iliescu) and media promoters (such as Darie Novaceanu in Adevarul) of the FSN (National Salvation Front) as the “emanation of the Revolution” does not seem justified. It seems directly tied to two late January 1990 events—the decision of the Front’s leaders to run as a political party in the first post-Ceausescu elections and the contestation from the street of the Front’s leaders’ legitimacy to rule and to run in those elections. It also seems difficult to defend objectively as a legitimate description, since even according to their own accounts, senior Front officials had been in contact with one another and discussed overthrowing the Ceausescus prior to the Revolution, since there had existed no real competing non-Ceausescu regime alternative on 22 December 1989 (an argument they themselves make), and since they had clearly not been elected to office. Moreover, when senior former Front officials, Iliescu among them, point to their winning of two-thirds of the votes for the new parliament in May 1990 and Iliescu’s 85 percent vote for the presidency, the numbers in and of themselves—even beyond the by now pretty obvious and substantiated manipulation, surveillance, and intimidation of opposition parties, candidates, movements and civil society/non-governmental organizations that characterized the election campaign—are a red flag to the tainted and only partly free and fair character of those founding elections.

But if the FSN and Ion Iliescu cannot be accurately and legitimately described as the “emanation of the Revolution,” it also seems reasonable to suggest that the term “stolen revolution” is somewhat unfair. The term “stolen revolution” inevitably suggests a central, identifiable, and sufficiently coherent ideological character of the revolution and the presence of an alternative non-Ceausescu, non-Front leadership that could have ensured the retreat of Ceausescu forces and been able to govern and administer the country in the days and weeks that followed. The absence of the latter was pretty clear on 22 December 1989—Iasi, Timisoara, and Arad among others, had local, authentic nuclei leading local movements (for example, the FDR, Frontul Democrat Roman), but no direct presence in Bucharest—and the so-called Dide and Verdet “22 minute” alternative governments were even more heavily compromised by former high-ranking communist dignitary inclusion than the FSN was (the one with the least, headed by Dumitru Mazilu, was rapidly overtaken and incorporated into the FSN).

As to the question of the ideological character of the revolt against Ceausescu, it is once again instructive to turn to what a direct participant, in this case in the Timisoara protests, has to say about it. Marius Mioc , who participated in the defense of Pastor Tokes’ residence and in the street demonstrations that grew out of it, was arrested, interrogated, and beaten from the 16th until his release with other detainees on the 22nd and who has written with longstanding hostility toward former Securitate and party officials, IIiescu, the FSN, and their successors, gives a refreshingly honest account of those demonstrations that is in stark contrast to the often hyperpoliticized, post-facto interpretations of December 1989 prefered by ideologues:

I don’t know if the 1989 revolution was as solidly anticommunist as is the fashion to say today. Among the declarations from the balcony of the Opera in Timisoara were some such as “we don’t want capitalism, we want democratic socialism,” and at the same time the names of some local PCR [communist] dignitaries were shouted. These things shouldn’t be generalized, they could have been tactical declarations, and there existed at the same time the slogans “Down with communism!” and flags with the [communist] emblem cut out, which implicitly signified a break from communism. [But] the Revolution did not have a clear ideological orientation, but rather demanded free elections and the right to free speech.

Romania December 1989 was thus both revolution and coup, but its primary definitive characteristic was that of revolution, as outlined by “Florentin” and Marius Mioc above. To this must be added what is little talked about or acknowledged as such today: the counter-revolution of December 1989. Prior to 22 December 1989, the primary target of this repression was society, peaceful demonstrators—although the Army itself was both perpetrator of this repression but also the target of Securitate forces attempting to ensure their loyalty to the regime and their direct participation and culpabilization in the repression of demonstrators. After 22 December 1989, the primary target of this violence was the Army and civilians who had picked up weapons, rather than citizens at large. It is probably justified to say that in terms of tactics, after 22 December 1989, the actions of Ceausist forces were counter-coup in nature, contingencies prepared in the event of an Army defection and the possibility of foreign intervention in support of such a defection. However, precisely because of what occurred prior to 22 December 1989, the brutal, bloody repression of peaceful demonstrators, and because the success of the coup was necessary for the success of the revolution already underway, it is probably accurate to say that the Ceausescu regime’s actions as a whole constituted a counter-revolution. If indeed the plotters had not been able to effectively seize power after the Ceausescus fled on 22 December 1989 and Ceausescu or his direct acolytes had been able to recapture power, we would be talking of the success not of a counter-coup, but of the counter-revolution.

A key component of the counter-revolution of December 1989 concerns the, as they were christened at the time, so-called “terrorists,” those who were believed then to be fighting in defense of the Ceausescu couple. It is indeed true as Siani-Davies has written that the Revolution is about so much more than “the Front” and “the terrorists.” True enough, but the outstanding and most vexing question about December 1989—one that resulted in 942 killed and 2,251 injured after 22 December 1989—is nevertheless the question of “the terrorists.” Finding out if they existed, who they were, and who they were defending remains the key unclarified question of December 1989 two decades later: that much is inescapable.

…

We also know from Romanescu and a second source that USLA commander Gheorghe Ardeleanu (Bula Moise) addressed his troops as follows:

“On 25 December at around 8 pm, after the execution of the dictators, Colonel Ardeleanu gathered the unit’s members into an improvised room and said to them:
‘The Dictatorship has fallen! The Unit’s members are in the service of the people. The Romanian Communist Party [PCR] is not disbanding! It is necessary for us to regroup in the democratic circles of the PCR—the inheritor of the noble ideas of the people of which we are a part!…Corpses were found, individuals with USLAC (Special Unit for Antiterrorist and Commando Warfare) identity cards and identifications with the 0620 stamp of the USLA, identity cards that they had no right to be in possession of when they were found…’ He instructed that the identity cards [of members of the unit] had to be turned in within 24 hours, at which time all of them would receive new ones with Defense Ministry markings.”

In other words, a cover-up of a now failed attempt at counter-revolution—having been cut short by the execution of the Ceausescus, the object of their struggle—had begun. In the days and weeks that were to follow, the Securitate, including people such as the seemingly ubiquitous Colonel Ghircoias discussed in the opening of this article would go about recovering those “terrorists” who were unlucky enough to be captured, injured, or killed. By 24 January 1990, the “terrorists” of the Romanian Counter-Revolution of December 1989, no longer existed, so-to-speak, and the chances for justice and truth about what had happened in December 1989 would never recover.

…

—————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————-

A Brief Timeline of the Counter-Revolutionary Coverup

26 December 1989

(Those who argue that there was no “other side” during the fighting of 22-25 December 1989–that the “terrorists” did not exist, that they were from the Army (in particular DIA), that it was all just “friendly fire,” misunderstanding, paranoia, fear, and suspicion (such post-modernist excess permeates the accounts of Peter Siani-Davies, Ruxandra Cesereanu , Adrian Cioflanca, to name a few of the more recent accounts, as well as reviews of films such as A Fost sau N-a Fost?/12:08 East of Bucharest)–have difficulty explaining how the Hungarian military maintains they were tracking Securitate radio transmitters/transmissions and relaying the information to the Romanian military leadership and that the operation of these Securitate transmitters dropped off in sync with the drop off in counter-revolutionary resistance posed by the Securitate…Then again they are not aware of this or most of the details/evidence presented for the period 26 December 1989 – 24 January 1990 below…)

Colonel Gyorgy Keleti, head of the Hungarian People’s Army Press Department: “…I would like to say that a progressive weakening of the Securitate has been experienced. We ourselves can see this, because our radio searching and locating units which were in Hungary a few days ago were monitoring broadcasts from 31 Securitate radio centers–yesterday 19, and today only 5. We of course put this data at the disposal of the Romanian military leadership.”

Hungarian Defense Minister Colonel General Ferenc Karpati and Romanian Defense Attache to Hungary Colonel Ioan Todericiu (see videos below) confirm below the violation of Hungarian airspace by Romanian helicopters during the Romanian Revolution of December 1989 that overthrew communist dictator Nicolae Ceausescu 25 years ago. The context makes clear these were Securitate helicopters in the service of the Romanian secret police, the Securitate, and Nicolae Ceausescu.

Both at the time (Foreign Broadcast Information Service of the United States Government, FBIS-EEU-89-246, 26 December 1989) and 10 years later in 2000, Karpati acknowledged the violation of Hungarian airspace by Securitate helicopters. He didn’t have any doubt, these were not just the alleged suppositions of Hungarian journalists, and more than a decade after the events–in other words, after a tsunami of Securitate-inspired revisionism in Romania–he continued to maintain they belonged to the Securitate…not to the Romanian military as the timeless deniers would have us believe…

Former USLA Captain Marian Romanescu admitted to journalist Dan Badea in 1991 that the USLA (special anti-terrorist unit) had its own helicopter force, thereby substantiating the suspicion of the unidentified revolutionary that the helicopters in question were “special”/”from a special unit.” Thus, it is abundantly clear that Vlad’s claim that the Securitate had “just three helicopters” was a bald-faced lie.

The locational identification of low-flying Securitate unit helicopters caused real problems in the thick fog of late December. These represented the greatest threat to the Hungarian border defense. In total on five occasions such helicopters violated the airspace of the Hungarian Republic.

The Romanian Defense Attache to Budapest at the time, Col. Ioan Todericiu, confirms here (in Romanian) that the Hungarian Chief of Staff notified him of the penetration of Hungarian airspace of the same number of helicopters–five–and that they were within range of anti-aircraft missile defense at Szolnok. Todericiu was asked what the Hungarians should do. His answer is revealing: he left it up to the Hungarians. Would he have done that if there were even the slightest chance that these had been helicopters of the Romanian military? NO! His answer–politically incorrect and dangerous after 1990 in Romania–confirms Karpati’s claim above, as clear as day.

Gheorghe Ratiu, head of the Securitate’s First Directorate, maintains that, on Director Vlad’s orders, between 25 and 27 December 1989 he was tasked with finding out the “truth” concerning the “foreign terrorists” reported to be in the hospitals and morgues; he had to resort to subterfuge to verify the situation, since Army personnel were denying him entrance. (Gheorghe Ratiu, interview by Ilie Neacsu (episode 17), Europa, 7-22 March 1995, cited in Hall 1997, p. 366.)

I know of no better metaphor for what has happened to research on the Romanian Revolution of December 1989 than Ted Koppel’s surreal experience in Bucharest in early 1990 recounted below.

from 2 April 1990, ABC News Special. The Koppel Report: Death of a Dictator.

Monday, March 5 (1990).

Bucharest. Among the many art forms that have atrophied during the past 45 years in Romania, is that of dissembling. Confronted by questions they don’t like, a number of military officers and officials whom we encountered, simply lied. Stupid lies; the kind that speak of a society in which no one ever dared to question an official pronouncement.

We had requested a tour of the complex of tunnels that radiate out from beneath the old Communist Party Central Committee building in Bucharest. An army colonel escorted us along perhaps 50 yards of tunnel one level beneath the ground and the pronounced the tour over. I asked to be shown the second and third levels, videotape of which had already been provided us by some local entrepreneurs. “There is no second or third level,” said the colonel. I assured him that I had videotape of one of his own subordinates, who had escorted us on this tour, lifting a toilet that concealed the entrance to a ladder down to the next level of tunnels. The colonel went off to consult with his man. When he came back he said, “my officer says he’s never seen you before.” “True,” I replied, but then I’d never said he had, only that we were in possession of the videotape I’d described. “There are no other tunnels,” said the colonel.

According to former Military Prosecutor, General Dan Voinea, whose claims form the foundation of the Chapter on December 1989 in the Final Report of the Presidential Commission for the Study of the Communist Dictatorship in Romania (CPADCR), also known as the Tismaneanu Commission after its president Vladimir Tismaneanu, there was nothing special about the tunnels found beneath Bucharest in December 1989–they were merely for sewage, water supply, and electricity, and could not have been used by “the terrorists” since, just like unusual munitions (for example, explosive dum-dum bullets), these most definitely did not exist….

However, according to videotape from December 1989, ventilation/oxygen filtration systems (not to mention an elevator to a bunker, fully-stocked refrigerators, gas masks, etc. see below screen captures from French TV–seems those may have been taken from BBC1 Michael Stewart’s report from 27 December 1989 below) happened to turn up in what Voinea claims are the typical underground tunnels that span beneath any large city…

(To my pleasant surprise, I discovered the AFP (Agence France Presse) Archive online. I finally dug into my pocket and purchased for approximately 3 euros an article the following articles.)

Anatomy of a Cover-up (or Constanta, we have a problem…): In the waning days of December 1989 following the execution of Nicolae and Elena Ceausescu on Christmas Day, several high-ranking officials from Romania’s military and commercial navy stationed in and around Constanta recounted to foreign reporters details of what had happened off the Black Sea Coast during the previous week and a half…That they spoke out of turn and were entirely too honest could be surmised by the effort of Bucharest–and those directly charged with the overall governance and defense of the country–to deny the revelations out of Constanta. It was the beginning of the cover-up of the Counter-Revolution of December 1989 and it was done precisely because of the involvement of foreign mercenaries in fighting side by side with elements of the Securitate who opposed the ouster of Nicolae Ceausescu. (So, indeed, the cover-up was initiated by Romania’s new civil and military leaders to avoid international ramifications (the ultimate state function, regardless of regime, in a world of nation-states)…it would be continued by others.)

One wonders what would have happened had this series of reports been laid out in sequence and analyzed as a sequence. There seems to have been more coverage of them (abroad) in the Budapest (see below), rather than Bucharest, press. One of the few references in the literature on December 1989 is on page 66 of Nestor Ratesh’s Romania: The Entangled Revolution (1991), where Ratesh notes a (31 December 1989) Agence France Presse dispatch citing the office of naval commander Constantin Iordache on Soviet and Bulgarian information that helicopters were being launched by suspicious ships approximately 60 miles off the coast, as well as a later denial by other Romanian authorities of the existence of these helicopters. As one can see below, the five AFP reports on the subject, from 30 and 31 December 1989, and 2 and 3 January 1990, are far more detailed, diverse, and damning than Ratesh’s allusion would suggest.

Note: Not everything at this point had “disappeared”: General Vasile Ionel confirmed that the terrorists had used foreign arms (arms not produced in Warsaw Pact countries, as he specified) and that they used munitions outlawed by international conventions, for example exploding DUM-DUM bullets (“balles explosives”).

Talk about a clear example where the stupidities about Front and/or Army “disinformation” “inventing the terrorists” cannot explain behavior and fall apart miserably: The case of the comments of military commanders on the Black Sea coast during the period 29-31 December 1989…and the reaction of senior military authorities in Bucharest who realized those revelations could cause international problems for Romania’s new leaders and thus needed to quash the truth as quickly as possible.

Robert Cullen, “Report from Romania: Down with the Tyrant,” The New Yorker, 2 April 1990.

Late the next night, Romanian television showed Ceausescu’s corpse, lying in a pool of blood. After that, the Securitate resistance wilted, although sporadic sniping continued for a week or so. It turned out that not all of the Securitate fighters were Romanian. A ranking member of the National Salvation Front told me that about a hundred of them, including some who fought the longest, were from Syria, Iraq, Libya, and other countries with histories of involvement in terrorism. They had come to Romania ostensibly as exchange students, but had in fact received commando training. In return, they agreed to serve the Securitate for several years. As these foreigners were captured, and rumors–accurate ones–about their origins began to spread, the Front publicly denied that any Arabs had been involved with the Securitate. It did so because it wished to avoid any trouble in relations with the Arab world, the Front official explained. I asked what would become of the captured Arab commandos, and he responded by silently drawing his index finger across his throat.

CONTACT WITH QADDAFI Tripoli Voice of Greater Arab Homeland – A telephone contact took place between the brother leader of the revolution (Qaddafi) and Ion Iliescu, President of the People’s Committee for National Salvation in Rumania in order to set his mind at rest with regard to the progress of the popular revolution there. The President of the People’s Committee for National Salvation reassured the brother leader of the revolution regarding the successful progress of the popular revolution in Rumania. The President of the People’s Committee for National Salvation saluted the attitudes of the great Al-Fatih revolution and the Libyan Arab people to the people of Rumania and its revolution. President Iliescu informed the brother leader of the revolution that the popular revolutionary leadership does not believe the rumors about the participation of Arabs in the fighting against the popular revolution and said that those rumors were spread by enemies in order to influence our morale, the progress of the popular revolution, and our friendship with the Arabs. President Iliescu confirmed to the brother leader of the revolution that authority will be that of the people because the popular revolution was carried out by the whole Rumanian people. President Iliescu expressed his thanks for and appreciation of the Libyan Arab people for the urgent humanitarian assistance provided by air to the Rumanian people. http://www.nytimes.com/1989/12/29/world/upheaval-in-the-east-news-reports-excerpts-from-broadcasts-and-a-press-dispatch.html Angela Bacescu with the Libyan ambassador to Romania Abu Ghula, Europa (Est/Vest), no. 94, September 1992, pp. 14-15 The Libyan ambassador discusses how on 25 or 26 December 1989 the then Libyan ambassador went on Romanian television to deny the rumors of Libyans fighting. “What is more, he called for the delivery of any Libyan terrorirsts [!]“ On 29 or 30 December, Colonel Khadaffi addressed the Romanian people by satellite. “Libya sent 4 planes with humanitarian aid (food, beds, medicine) that landed at Otopeni airport, were unloaded and then returned empty to Libya [interesting that he should have to specify that they returned empty to Libya].”

Dr. Nicolae Constantinescu, chief surgeon at the Coltea Hospital, also was paid the honor of a visit by Colonel Ghircoias during these days:

I remember that on 1 or 2 January ’90 there appeared at the [Coltea] hospital a colonel from the Interior Ministry, who presented himself as Chircoias. He maintained in violent enough language that he was the chief of I-don’t-know-what “criminalistic” department from the Directorate of State Security [ie. Securitate]. He asked that all of the extracted bullets be turned over to him. Thus were turned over to him 40 bullets of diverse forms and dimensions, as well as munition fragments.[9]

Screen Capture of a registry presented by Dr. Nicolae Nae Constantinescu in TVR documentary by Toma Roman Jr. mentioning an atypical bullet with cap (varf) retezat extracted from a patient on 23 December 1989 and later “collected” by Ghircoias.

“Ten Romanians suspected of being Securitate agents have sought asylum in Yugoslavia, where the authorities are cooperating with the new Romanian government to check their identity. Mr. Jovan Vuckovic, Deputy Minister of Internal Affairs, said that Yugoslavia was in touch with the Bucharest leadership after a warning that Securitate groups may be trying to escape.”

According to the journalist, the Army’s suspicions were confirmed when it found a cache of dum-dum bullets, exclusively used by the Securitate, at the home of the head of the agricultural cooperative at Topolovatu Mare, Ioan Josu [former member of the Communist Party Central Committee].

Lt. Col. Alexandru Bodea (no. 22 May 1990 Armata Poporului):On 9 January 1990, between the hours of 21:55 and 23:14, on the radar screens of the missile managers of one of the subordinate subunits there were detected signals coming from about 12 unidentified aircraft, that were deploying, at a height of 300 to 1800 meters, in the direction of a nearby locality.The following day, between the hours of 03:00 and 04:15 again were detected the signals of six airships, after which—the same—between 17:00-18:00 and 21:30—the same type of signals, several aerial targets hovering at altitudes between 300-3000 meters, in the same direction as the previous day.Then, as if to boost the belief of the missile officers that this was no accident, on the third day, 11 January, between the hours 0400-0500, again there appeared the signals of 7 unidentified aircraft, having essentially the same flight characteristics. What is curious is that not a single one of these targets was observed visually and no characteristic engine sounds were heard in the respective locations.But even more curious is that, just then, from the central radio base of a nearby municipality, there arrived a communications unit that intercepted foreign signals on a particular bandwidth, in impulses, while on another frequency an intense traffic in Arabic or Turkish was noted.In light of this information, the commander of the unit organized a radio inspection of numerous areas, with the help of transmissions’ equipment. Therefore, on 11 January 1990, between 1120 and 1130 on the respective frequency were received the code signs in English, 122 calling 49, 38, 89, 11, 82, 44, 38, 84, and asked if they “were doing well.”From the fragments of discussions it could be understood that they were making references to explosives, hospitals, medicines, and wounded “for the hours 1400.” At 1330, on the same frequency, once again were intercepted conversations in which there was mention of wounded and requests for help. The transmissions were received over this, in which a more feminine voice and a dog’s bark could be clearly heard. References were made to the preceding conversations that were to follow at 1800, 1900, 2200, and then on 12 January 1990, at 0910.Chatting with some citizens from the local area where these targets and foreign radio traffic were intercepted, the commander of the anti-aircraft unit to whom we referred found out that nearby there exists a wooded road (author’s note: the locality is in a mountainous area), surrounded by two rows of barbed wire, a road on which in fact there is no lumber transport. Not by chance, since before the Revolution, the road was off-limits and was under the strict guard of the Securitate. [emphasis added]These same citizens further informed the unit’s commander, that after the Revolution, the road in question did not become a no-man’s land, remaining instead in the hands of people dressed as woodsmen but about whom those from the local lumber collective had no clue.Who could these unknown “woodsmen” be? And what “affairs” did they have there? Perhaps exactly…[article concludes]

16 January 1990: (Date of film procured by Ted Koppel and ABC News showing underground tunnels used by the “terrorists”)

Monday, March 5 (1990).

Bucharest. Among the many art forms that have atrophied during the past 45 years in Romania, is that of dissembling. Confronted by questions they don’t like, a number of military officers and officials whom we encountered, simply lied. Stupid lies; the kind that speak of a society in which no one ever dared to question an official pronouncement.

We had requested a tour of the complex of tunnels that radiate out from beneath the old Communist Party Central Committee building in Bucharest. An army colonel escorted us along perhaps 50 yards of tunnel one level beneath the ground and the pronounced the tour over. I asked to be shown the second and third levels, videotape of which had already been provided us by some local entrepreneurs. “There is no second or third level,” said the colonel. I assured him that I had videotape of one of his own subordinates, who had escorted us on this tour, lifting a toilet that concealed the entrance to a ladder down to the next level of tunnels. The colonel went off to consult with his man. When he came back he said, “my officer says he’s never seen you before.” “True,” I replied, but then I’d never said he had, only that we were in possession of the videotape I’d described. “There are no other tunnels,” said the colonel.

There’s much to be said about this article. My apologies for it’s quality: it was xeroxed from the Library of Congress’s microfilm collection and then scanned in. I wish I could say I came across this by myself, as I have so much of what I have found on the Romanian Revolution of December 1989. Instead, I found reference to it in Aurel Perva and Carol Roman’s 1991 book, Misterele Revolutiei Romane (see below).

On Thursday morning [18 January 1990], for example, a plainclothes officer of the pro-Ceausescu Securitate suddenly emerged from a manhole on Nicolae Balcescu Boulevard, the main north-south thoroughfare. He was immediately detained by passers-by, who were evidently aware that in recent weeks the Securitate forces had used a vast network of underground tunnels for hit-and-run attacks on the Rumanian Army units that joined the uprising. In a short time, armed soldiers gathered at the manhole and brought out another 16 Securitate officers who had been living in the tunnels for nearly a month. Down the street that same day, four more Securitate officers turned themselves in to an army unit in front of the Plaza Building, saying they were starving. This was revealed by two associates of Cristian Popisteanu, editor in chief of Magazin Istoric, who witnessed the incidents. But so far, no word of what happened has appeared in the Bucharest press or on television. [NYT 1/22/1990]

Upheaval in the East: Rumania; Rumanians Call for Freedom in Schools

By DAVID BINDER, Special to The New York Times

Published: January 22, 1990

BUCHAREST, Rumania, Jan. 21— Student leaders, addressing a crowd of about 3,000 of their classmates today, demanded far-reaching changes in the faculties of Bucharest University and other Rumanian institutions of higher learning.

The strongest demand, and the one cheered most loudly by the students, was for the ouster of professors most closely associated with the Communist dictatorship of the late Nicolae Ceausescu, particularly those working for the Securitate, or state security police.

”There are Securitate officers on the journalism faculty,” a student, Daniel Oghian, declared. He assailed Professor Radu Florian as a Ceausescu holdover whose advocacy of Communist ideology was particularly objectionable. Mr. Florian is a member of the Stefan Gheorgiu Academy, where Securitate officials were trained. The academy was grafted onto Bucharest University under the Ceausescu Government.

”Down with Florian!” the students chanted. ”Down with Stefan Gheorgiu! Depoliticize! Depoliticize!” ‘Militarized’ Classrooms Mihai Iliescu, a physics student, drew cheers when he declared that incompetent professors should be sent back to ”study their lessons over again” or be forced to resign. He also called for the ouster of the Ministry of Education’s inspector of universities.

Another speaker, from the Marine Sciences Institute in Constanta, said that his college had been ”militarized” and subjected to Securitate control under Mr. Ceausescu. Conditions were such that students were quartered 50 to a single room, he said, and buildings were unheated.

”Take it over!” the students shouted. ”Take it over!” It was the second rally in two weeks in the capital. The first was held at the Polytechnical Institute in western Bucharest. But this time the students gathered in University Square in the middle of the city under the auspices of a newly-formed Student League.

In passionate speeches commemorating classmates who were killed in the uprising that toppled the Ceausescu regime four weeks ago, the students said they wanted to create ”a new society” and ”a strong Rumania.”

”We speak from our hearts for those who were killed in the revolution,” said Mihai Gheorghiu, a third-year philosophy student. Dan Josif, another student, said, ”They fought with weapons, and we carried flowers.”

Government Is Silent on Protest

The students, many cradling lighted candles in their hands, bowed their heads in a minute of silence for their slain classmates, then raised their voices in four stanzas of the long-banned hymn ”Awake, Ye Rumanians,” which denounces ”barbarians and tyrants.”

There were no Government spokesmen at the rally. Nor was there any immediate reaction from the governing Council of National Salvation, although its President, Ion Iliescu, met with youth leaders today to discuss a future group for Rumanian young people to replace the Communist youth organization.

It has generally been impossible to obtain precise information about or reactions to daily events in Rumania from the Government, which closed its foreign press and telephone service on Saturday, even from its spokesman, although he holds periodic news conferences.

On Thursday morning, for example, a plainclothes officer of the pro-Ceausescu Securitate suddenly emerged from a manhole on Nicolae Balcescu Boulevard, the main north-south thoroughfare. He was immediately detained by passers-by, who were evidently aware that in recent weeks the Securitate forces had used a vast network of underground tunnels for hit-and-run attacks on the Rumanian Army units that joined the uprising.

In a short time, armed soldiers gathered at the manhole and brought out another 16 Securitate officers who had been living in the tunnels for nearly a month. Down the street that same day, four more Securitate officers turned themselves in to an army unit in front of the Plaza Building, saying they were starving.

This was revealed by two associates of Cristian Popisteanu, editor in chief of Magazin Istoric, who witnessed the incidents. But so far, no word of what happened has appeared in the Bucharest press or on television.

Photos: Students in Bucharest demonstrating yesterday for far-reaching changes at universities, including the ouster of faculty members the students say were supporters of the deposed dictator, Nicolae Ceausescu. (AP); A student at the rally mourning a relative killed in the revolution. (Reuters)

A cryptic message announcing the abrogation of unspecified secret accords with unspecified countries carried out by the Ceausescu regime, but not contained in the registries of the Foreign Ministry and in contravention of international law (in other words, Plan Z-Z, an accord with several Middle Eastern states, most importantly perhaps Qadhafi’s Libya)…24 January 1990 appears to have also been–not coincidentally–the last day “foreign terrorists” who had fought with the Securitate against Ceausescu’s downfall were exfiltrated from the country–reputedly following a threat to Romanian workers in Libya by Qadhafi if the remaining Arab mercenaries in Romanian custody were not allowed to leave the country…WHY OH WHY, WE ARE CONSTANTLY ASKED, DID ILIESCU, ROMAN, AND THE NATIONAL SALVATION FRONT NOT PUT THE “TERRORISTS” ON TRIAL: HERE IS YOUR ANSWER, THEY WERE COMPLICIT IN ALLOWING THEM TO LEAVE THE COUNTRY AND THEREFORE LACKED A KEY ELEMENT OF THOSE RESPONSIBLE FOR THE DECEMBER BLOODSHED. THE TRUTH ABOUT THE REVOLUTION WAS THUS COMPROMISED, BURIED ON THAT FATEFUL DAY OF 24 JANUARY 1990.

In early March 1990, Agence France Presse reported the declared findings of surgeons in Bucharest, attesting to the fact that many of those wounded on 21-22 December 1989 in Bucharest had been shot with exploding bullets, DUM-DUM bullets. [Significantly, a slew of military prosecutors, among them General Dan Voinea, General Romeo Balan, and General Teodor Ungureanu have attempted to deceive Romanians in the years since by denying or avoiding mention of the existence and use of DUM-DUM munitions in December 1989.]

Lt. Gnl. Traian Oancea, chief of surgery in part of the Central Military Hospital in Bucharest, and Dr. Nicolae “Nae” Constantinescu, chief of surgery at the Coltea Hospital, discussed this at a meeting of the Society of Surgeons in Bucharest.